Eurobites: STC goes 5G network slicing with Netcracker, Casa Systems

Trouser press? Check. Hot beverage making facilities? Check. 5G? Check! Guests who choose the right rooms at the Comfort Hotel Xpress Stockholm will be able to arguably enhance their stay with 5G, thanks to a collaboration between the Nordic Choice Hotels group, Tele2 and IT company Speeron. Initially, 5G-powered Wi-Fi will only be available in 20 of the hotel's 257 rooms, but the hotel chain hopes to roll it out across its various locations in the Nordic region. Obviously, the technology will give guests access to top-notch TV services, games and other entertainment applications, but plans also include the installation of 5G-connected sensors to monitor air quality in the rooms.

Virgin Media's latest sustainability report reveals that the UK cable operator has reduced the amount of waste it sends to landfill to zero for the first time, and that it has reduced its operational carbon footprint by 46% since 2014. In the report, "Dialling into 2020," Virgin also claims to have refurbished and reused more than 8 million products over the same period.

In related matters, Belgium's Proximus has published its Sustainable Finance Framework, which allows the company to issue a variety of sustainable financing instruments including bonds and bank loans to help it channel investments into projects that have demonstrated ecological and social benefits. Eligible projects include those that boost the energy efficiency of Proximus networks such as the expansion of energy-efficient fiber-to-the-home installations, as well as investments in IoT networks.

Fiber-to-the-yogurt has arrived. UK fiber provider Truespeed has connected high-profile organic dairy brand Yeo Valley to its high-speed broadband network. Yeo Valley, which is based in south-west England, now has access to gigabit-capable connectivity at six of its sites.

It's three years to the day when the GDPR data privacy laws were introduced in the European Union and the BBC has been taking a look at which companies have clocked up the biggest GDPR-related fines since then. British Airways tops the rankings, with a fine of €211.7 million (US$259.4 million) in 2019 after users of its website were redirected to a fraudulent site, allowing hackers to hoover up the personal data of around half a million customers. In second place is Marriott International Hotels, which was handed a bill for €110.3 million ($135.2 million) in 2018 after a hack exposed the details of about 300 million customers. And in third spot we have some outfit called Google, which had to find a paltry €50 million ($61.2 million) after a French regulator ruled that the search giant was more or less hiding its consumer data processing statements. (See Eurobites: Most EU States Still Not Ready for GDPR and Eurobites: Facebook Backs Out of Ireland as GDPR Jeopardy Looms.)

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading